The First One
by Ketchupwings
Summary: Reeling from Will's death, Tessa flees to Paris, where she finds Magnus. He holds her in his arms just when she needs it. Just a short drabble!
1. Chapter 1

**Hi everyone! I was rereading the _Clockwork Princess_ epilogue, and it gave me this idea for this short story. Hope you enjoy! **

_Paris, 1938_

"Perfect," Magnus declared as he set down his paintbrush and admired his new piece of work. "Let's see how much this sells for."

Giving a contented sigh, he left the painting to dry and ambled over to the window overlooking the city of light. Paris was beautiful, as beautiful as it had been when he had last been here, during the French Revolution. Of course it had changed – automobiles now rolled down the city streets, electricity made the night as bright as day, and of course, the feeling of tension hung in the air. A sense of foreboding, and dread, a coming darkness that would engulf all in its path.

Magnus shook his head. Mundane politics had never interfered in his life, and he was not about to start letting them play a role now. He had weathered the storm of the Great War in New York – he would retreat to the safety of America should the need arise.

He turned away from the window just as a knock sounded at his door.

"_Qui est-ce_?" he called.

The reply came in English. "Magnus? Magnus, is that you?"

Magnus paused. A voice he had not heard in thirty-five years. A voice that, last he had heard it, had been laughing and joyful, but was now the furthest thing from that. Hurrying to the door, he flung it open.

Tessa Gray stood at his doorstep. She wore a white dress, dyeing her grey eyes a shade of light blue. Her dark brown hair fell unpinned about her shoulders. By her feet stood a small brown valise. She clutched her hands together in front of her. It was clear she was nervous, but despite that she held her chin high and looked Magnus evenly in the eye. Tessa had always carried herself regally, no matter what the occasion.

"Tessa," Magnus said. "Come in!"

"Thank you," Tessa said quietly, and, picking up her valise, made her way into Magnus' small garret apartment. Magnus shut and locked the door, and studied Tessa closely.

The grey eyes that had always been wide and trusting were darker now. The vulnerability and the need for a friend which Magnus had always read so easily in Tessa's eyes were still there, but gone was the twinkling amusement, the curiosity. Even the intelligence seemed – well, not absent, but muted. A deep sadness was there to see in her eyes. Tessa had never been able to hide her emotions, and Magnus read her easily, as he always had.

Looking around, though, Magnus watched her make a brave attempt at a smile.

"You have a charming apartment," she commented.

"I've always thought so," Magnus said with a small bow. "Tell me, what brings you to Paris?"

The hints of the smile vanished, and Tessa looked down at her feet. "I couldn't stay in London," she confessed. "I had to go."

Magnus wanted to kick himself. Of course. He had heard about Will. He had known this day would come, as it must, as it always would, and he had known Tessa would be left like this. But now that the day had come, he found himself with nothing to say.

"I did not know you would be in Paris," Tessa said, continuing in Magnus' silence. "I arrived here and found a Downworld tavern. And I heard some werewolves discussing you. And so – I came."

"I am sorry I did not tell you," Magnus apologized. "We have been out of contact for far too long."

"It seems our correspondence leaves much to be desired," said Tessa. "I seem to remember myself saying the same thing thirty-five years ago."

Magnus chuckled, but Tessa did not.

"I did not know who else to go to," Tessa admitted, sinking down onto Magnus' small couch. "I thought I would come to see you. You have always been a friend to me, to our family, to – "

She cut herself off, and Magnus did not blame her. It was always difficult to lose a mortal love. He would know. He had lost enough of them.

"You're more than welcome to stay as long as you need," he told her. "I have only one bed, but you're welcome to it, and I will sleep on the couch…"

"No." Tessa shook her head. "Thank you for your kindness, but I shall not inconvenience you any more than I already have. It was good to see you, Magnus."

She rose to her feet, but Magnus caught at her sleeve. "Tessa," he said, "I insist. You will stay with me."

Tessa looked at him with wide, grey eyes, and Magnus was suddenly lost, as the memory of a foggy, gas-lit London rose around him and claimed him. He recalled a wild-haired, blue-eyed Shadowhunter boy standing desperately in Camille's living room, begging for help.

_I need your help._ _There is absolutely no one else that I can ask_.

And then Tessa spoke, and the fog and gaslight went away, and Magnus was back in Paris.

"All right," she whispered. She looked down. "I have nowhere else to go, anyway," she murmured slowly. "The Shadowhunters will not accept me in any other Institute, and I cannot return to London."

Magnus felt an overwhelming surge of sadness as he looked at Tessa. Her anchor was gone, and she was left floundering.

"Stay with me," he told her. "And mend. Stay here."

**Stay tuned for the next chapter! And reviews please! **


	2. Chapter 2

The sound of a piercing scream jolted Magnus awake. Dressed in just flannel pyjama bottoms, he leapt out of bed and dashed into the living room to determine the origin of the sound.

Tessa was curled up on the mattress he had provided for her by the window. Dressed in just a nightgown, she looked smaller than ever, her hands fisted around the thin blanket she had brought with her. Her eyes were still shut, but tears streamed down her face in rivers, she writhed back in forth as though she was in agony, tossing her head back and forth. From her lips came another scream, but this time it was a word: _Will_.

Magnus dropped to his knees as the scream broke off into bitter sobbing, and shook Tessa awake. "Tessa, Tessa," he murmured. "Please wake up."

It took a while, but eventually Tessa opened her eyes to reveal grey-blue orbs swimming with tears. "M-Magnus?" she stammered.

"Shhh," Magnus soothed.

Tessa's eyes slid shut again, and deep sobs began to wrack her body. "Will," she whispered.

Magnus' arms went around her, and he held her close to him as she wept, her tears wetting his bare chest.

"The first one is always the hardest," he murmured.

It was some time before Tessa was able to form coherent words again. "The first?"

"The first one you love who dies. It gets easier, after."

Tessa broke down sobbing again, and looked up at him. "I can't," she whispered. "I can't even imagine continuing after this. It hurts so much – "

"It always does." Magnus' hands stroked her hair gently, and he began to rock her back and forth. "It will always hurt. But life continues."

"Not normal life!" With a sudden flare of fiery temper, Tessa shook herself free of Magnus' arms, her voice rising. "Not an ordinary life! Human lives end, and put them out of their misery! But I am not human! I will carry this pain until the end of time!" She suddenly stopped, and whispered, "I am never going to change."

Magnus watched her as she broke down again, the sudden burst of temper gone. There was no easy way of realizing it: the terrible burden of immortality. The realization that everything you saw, touched, _loved_, every last person, tree, and creature would die, and you would not, and just keep existing, untouched by the years, as the world around you morphed and transformed. Everything would change and become unrecognizable, and there you would be, just there, continuing, enduring, forever. And as that forever continued, as you watched the world tear itself down and build itself up again, the memory of those you had loved who were lost to you would endure too, constantly a source of pain.

Some mortals opined that Magnus was possessed of a very special gift. Magnus would not have wished it on his worst enemy.

His arms went around her again. "It gets easier," he promised. "It gets better, if only you carry on."

Tessa clung to him, sobbing into his neck. "I am seventy-six years old," she stammered. "I look like I am twenty-one. I am unnatural." She sounded almost bewildered through her pain. "But that never mattered to me. I was able to accept the way I was, to know that I wasn't like everyone else, just as long as – _he_ – was next to me."

Magnus knew how she felt. He remembered his first love, back in the 18th century. He remembered how they had laughed and loved, remembered their kisses, a memory grown sweet with time. He remembered how his love had died. It had taken decades to build his heart back up again until it was whole. And he had never really been the same afterwards.

"Such is the curse of being immortal," he whispered into her ear.

"I don't want it." Her voice was muffled. "What is there to continue on for?"

"There is Jem."

At the sound of his name, she stiffened. Magnus continued to hold her close.

"Jem, too, is continuing," he murmured to her. "The world changes, Tessa, and it leaves those who are mortal behind. But you must continue, for him, and for yourself."

"Jem," she whispered. That one word contained so much emotion, so much love, that it made Magnus ache.

"You will see him," he whispered. "Again and again. You must continue."

Tessa's sobs gradually subsided. "Don't leave me," she whispered.

Magnus would not have dreamed of it. They slid sideways, still holding each other close, and fell asleep on the mattress by the window. The last thing Magnus saw before he fell asleep was the stars in the Paris night – cold, unfeeling, and forever.


	3. Chapter 3

For a year, they remained in Paris.

Tessa's valise stayed by the door of Magnus' garret apartment, and he painted paintings, paintings which she found horrible but which earned them just enough to get by. On weekends, they would walk down to the Seine and watch the boats chugging by, or walk around the Champs Elysees, or watch the soaring glory of the Eiffel Tower. They remained untouched by the growing mundane tension.

Magnus introduced Tessa to the Downworld of Paris. They met the finest warlocks and vampires of European society. Tessa was never entirely comfortable around the Night Children, but she learned to smile and be civil. She learned the ways of Downworld.

He went with her on her short trip to London in the spring, to meet Jem on for their one hour on Blackfriars Bridge. She came back from that a little sadder. He asked her what had happened, and she merely shook her head. They left London that same night, and returned to Paris, where things were lighter and not as gloomy.

She also met the Shadowhunters of the Paris Institute. They were not so kind. They dismissed her as a Downworlder and treated her coldly and at an arm's distance.

"The Nephilim are a haughty people," Magnus told a confused Tessa after their encounter. "They always have been, sitting in their Institutes, contemplating their own superiority."

Tessa only looked at him. "Not all of them," she said quietly. And Magnus found he had nothing to say.

As the months passed, Magnus became aware that the pain Tessa was feeling was becoming less obvious. It was still there – she would still wake on some nights screaming for Will, and on those nights he would come running for her, just as he had that first night. But the ghosts of smiles began to touch her face once more, and the laughter lines that her face had forgotten began to return.

They still evaded the topic of Will, for it was still too painful for Tessa to bear. But, Magnus reflected, it had been a good decision for Tessa to leave London. Just as he had fled, all those years ago, his heart broken by what he had seen, so Tessa had fled. And they were both the better for it.

For a year, they continued in their small apartment, a comfortable existence. Then everything changed.

**~~Page Break~~**

Planes. Soldiers. Bombs. German troops, marching into Poland with the rigidity of automatons. The whole world was set abuzz as Britain and France declared war.

Magnus and Tessa remained in their apartment, uneasily watching the mundane events unfold. The last time mundanes had disrupted the Shadow World, the Great War had erupted.

Now, it looked like something similar was about to happen.

Tessa was cooking something one afternoon in late 1939 when Magnus arrived, breathless.

"We must leave."

Tessa turned, her eyebrows raised. "But I have just made dinner."

"No, no." Magnus shook his head impatiently. "We must leave Paris."

Tessa's eyebrows climbed still further. "Oh?"

"I have just met with the High Warlock of Paris. He warned me of terrible things that are about to happen."

"Terrible things are already happening."

"No, that's not what I meant!" Magnus strode over to Tessa. "The war will come to Paris."

Tessa stared at him.

"The war will come, and with it will come death and destruction. The most powerful warlocks in France are sure of it. Downworlders are already starting to leave in droves. We must go too, before the war takes us."

Tessa paused. "I see," she said slowly.

"We must go to New York."

Tessa looked up at him again. "New York?"

"Yes, New York. I have been away from home for too long. We'll be safe there, and I have friends in high places in New York. We will get by, and we will not let this war touch us."

Tessa sat down. "I'm tired," she said.

Magnus blinked. "What?"

"I'm tired of running." She shook her head, and a tear fell from her eye. "I've fled from London, and I've left it behind. I've been running away from my own pain for too long. Perhaps I should stay, and let the war do with me what it will."

Magnus sank to his knees again. "You must not think that way," he told her softly. "Think of all there is to live for."

Tessa just looked at him blankly.

"This war will be one of the darkest periods in human history," Magnus went on. "And there will be no escaping from it. We must go." He took her small, cold hands in his. "Let me show you New York. Let me reintroduce to you the places you once knew. Let me show you your hometown as you have never seen it before. I assure you, New York has changed from when you were a little girl there."

Tessa looked down at his hands clutching hers, then looked up again. "All right," she whispered.

They sailed a few days later, their ship departing from Calais. The ship sailed through the English Channel and into the Atlantic, and Magnus caught Tessa staring out the window at England as it began to recede into the distance. He knew that Tessa had a long way to go if she was to recover, but she had time, all the time in the world, and she was starting on the right path.

As England began to disappear, Tessa turned her gaze away from the window and faced forward. "Goodbye, England," she said firmly. "Hello, New York."

Magnus took her hand in his, and she looked at him sideways, the beginnings of the glimmer of amusement beginning to flicker in her grey-blue eyes. "Hello to the future."


End file.
